


Citrus love

by wickedesthonktraband



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Cigarettes, Depression, M/M, Other, casual self harm, dad issues, highschool, substance issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-03-06 11:35:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18850276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedesthonktraband/pseuds/wickedesthonktraband
Summary: its been years since zim came to earth, everybody is in highschool now but zim and dib feel at a loss for what to do anymore when nobody gets anything done and they both feel useless. expect more tags to be added as time goes on!





	1. Chapter 1

When he looks back at him he sees something like melancholy on his face and he wonders, if maybe Zim had more depth to him than just the need for domination.

 

Smoke blows around the air whispy and sad like a ghost lost in fog, it’d been years since Zim had been afraid of water when they first met-something that caught Dib wondering if Zim really even bathed himself in glue anymore, like the frogs he saw on the discovery channel once. Except he supposed rather than keeping himself protected from sunlight it was rain that he had at a time, needed saving from. With gray skies that surround them  he watches Zim roll his arms up over his knees, boots firmly planted in black top with his back against school wall, there’s something sad about it he couldn’t place his fingers on. Each time mind reaching out to grasp what was there, and watching theories and evaluations roll away like the self same wispy smoke in lost fog.

 

“You know these really are a testament to how disgustingly vile your species is, dib.” he hisses it lightly between thin lip like pieces of skin covering those zipper pattern teeth. “What kind of pathetic race would willingly poison itself like this on a planetary wide level?” he doesn’t look back nor does he raise the cigarette back to his mouth for another inhale, he looks off ever yet at some unknown horizon that had been somewhere far else than the playground ahead. “You know that’s pretty hypocritical right, considering that you’re kind of the one poisoning yourself now too, zim?” with gentle force he plucks away the cigarette from the aliens left hand, and takes in a long drag feeling the burn in his lungs deep. “You could’ve asked for it, worm-boy.” no response to his accusation, no surprise there. Zim just seemed too tired lately to care about that kind of thing, it weighed on his shoulders like atlas  with the world. He seemed too tired even to yell and scream at him when he would take away the menthol away from the invader like this anymore.

 

Dib could understand tired, at the very least he could understand being so tired you couldn’t act anymore. It might surprise him with Zim who’d once been full more of life then him, but he’d at least understand it. He was tired too. Years tired, years worn, with that he could find middle ground with him long enough to sit by him and breathe in the sweet taste of terrible cigarettes.

 

He hates these things,he knows Zim hates them too and he still ponders why he ever took these things up in the first place. He supposes it doesn’t matter, Zim’s pak just fixes what gets ruined by the end of it and he just coughs back up something phlegm like he’s starting all over again the next day over. But not Dib, Dib knows the burn on his lungs is setting in deeper and he’s fine with that. He has to be, if he isn’t fine with that then he can’t really be fine with anything now can he? Professor membrane could always fix it for him whenever he’s around if it gets worse enough, he knows that. But he doesn’t want it.

 

If he did, or he cared about his health at all anymore, he wouldn’t have let Zim’s filthy habit rub off on him after the alien first started smoking. He wouldn’t be sitting by him and relieving one to three to six off Zim at a time until the carton had been emptied.

Dib pulls the menthol away from his lips and exhales a long black cloud amongst pristine grey fog, his eyes closed he lets himself be lost in the world for a brief moment in time forgetting his self fulfilled destiny of being earths unneeded hero. He just lets the awful moment be with him in a peacefully distant way. When it’s all gone from him, he finally opens his eyes again resting his head back against the brick and concrete building behind them. Zim says nothing, dib says nothing. Nobody says anything, or does anything, they let the bittersweet moment cradle them with gentle comfort. There was stability here, in this. And stability was something they both needed now in a world changing faster than they could catch up.

 

If he didn’t hate him so much, if he wasn’t so awful.. Dib could feel like he’d want to stay there forever. He looks back to Zim, then promptly stands up feeling his knees crack in the process beneath black jeans like the silly bands he’s seen other students wear lately. The end of the cigarette falls away from his hand and he stomps it in under his sneaker. He lingers his sight to Zim who never returns back the gesture and keeps looking ahead, before he turns heel and heads away. “Looks like rain..” he breathes it out slow, a courtesy almost.

 

“Better head back to class jerk.”

  
  


The clock ticks on the wall like a metronome counting the song of the minutes passing by heavy and slower then they really were, same old thing as always a bored teacher sits at his desk just as bored as everyone else at class. Waiting for school to be over, just like every other student there.  Just like every day there. Bitter, boring, droll. He taps his pencil against the desk light enough so he doesn’t make too bad of a sound joining in on the metronome that ticked away for the class in an unheard symphony of time now.

 

Light shines in orange through the windows of the room, fog having given way to light in its place Dib can’t help but feel disappointed by its absence. Not necessarily out of malice for the alien that sat several feet away from him just as out of it now as he’d been earlier. Though that was a factor, and if he could find out why he wanted it to rain instead just as much as he’d  wanted to understand why Zim looked so different to him anymore he would. But he can’t, and both things remain seated on his mind.

 

When the bell rings harsh and merciful Dib is out of there faster than he possibly can be he wanted to be away from everything again, keep Zim out of his mind for a few hours and melt into his bed. Let the world be forgotten from him, he can already feel blankets against his skin as he marches out towards the bus and…

  


He sees the alien, walking off and away his gloved claws fiddling around with what Dib could only speculate was an at least half empty carton by now. The light of the orange tinted sun gives him some ethereal feeling in his walking away, those boots clicking loudly against the ground with each step. Dib stays the moment, just watching Zim like he’d been watching him the first time they came to earth.

 

His own sneakers fall against the ground lightly as he moves his direction towards Zim instead, his hands shoved into either pocket of his pants. Might as well walk with him he figures, and help finish off whatever else is there in the carton.

 

The bus would always be there again next time.


	2. Bad habit, dude.

Zim loves his menthols, the moment one is out after taking his time to enjoy the pain of it much as possible he picks up another one  just as fast exhaling out his sweet poison into the air as his boots click against the sidewalk like rubbery in unison with the falls of Dib’s sneaker clad feet. He almost looked like the kind of monster Dib would’ve been reading about in folklore when he still cared enough to try to track down things like the old jersey devil himself or rather more true to his life, bigfoot, if perhaps bigfoot breathed smoke and fire. 

 

“So..” Dib says awkward as he walks along with zim, who had been pointedly keeping his sight fixed on the sidewalk ahead of him. “I  kinda thought you might be walking home Zim, think you might be trying to take over the earth again?” he says it half hearted and joking to which Zim stops and  looks at him with the kind of smile the fox might give to the rooster before tearing it to shreds. 

 

“Very funny Dib-stink.” he rolls his faux eyes as much as possible and Dib wonders if maybe they’d get stuck back up there and he could let the alien get lost in the middle of a crowded intersection, before remembering that zim’s pak would fix that just as quickly as it fixed any long lasting damage the cigarettes would have on his body. “If i really wanted to I could still, not that it matters or is any of  your business.” 

 

He pauses, takes a drag off the mint soaked menthol in his hand before blowing it out back into dibs face and walking forward. “Well then where  _ are _ you going Zim??” “To light a couple fires, did you wanna join Dib?”

  
  
  


He’d never be  **completely** sure of where he got the habit but if Dib ever were to guess he would say it was something left over from his days of trying to be a proud irken soldier before, like himself, he gave up. The parking lot behind the bloaty’s off main street seems to be zim’s new favourite spot to burn things,  Dib mulls that over privately, before he watches a sky blue lighter make its way from Zim’s pocket into his hand, with the greasiest pizza boxes they could rescue from the dumpster. Each one piled haphazardly atop one another like a gentle kiss he presses the lighter to the far left edge of the bottom box. 

 

“Are you even sure it has enough fluid inside to burn anything? I mean jeeze Zim you smoke enough packages in a day to kill a person. Whatever happened to ‘irkens are superior beings who would never get addicted to anything’?” 

 

“No I don’t.” he says it simple, the lighter clicks, clicks, and continues doing so his thumb rolling over the metal each time with his eyes firmly fixed on the objects in front and crouched down on his feet like a gargoyle. Dib standing close behind, with arms crossed and a menthol tucked into his own two fingers he’d personally stolen from Zim ( _ Dib supposed he must eat more candy than he realized, the indirect kiss of stolen cigarettes let him taste Zim in a way he didn’t think of.) _ “Did..did you mean you don’t smoke that much or you’re not addicted…?” “Yes.”  _ click. _ .. _ click _ .. And with a sudden spark of light emitting itself from the lighter like a vengeful angel the corner finally catches and Dib’s not sure if he’s more astonished with that or with Zim “I..you...” he sighs, pulling the cigarette to his lips and cherishing the bitter burn it leaves in his lungs before responding “You know what, never mind.” kneeling down, then throwing the tobacco product directly into the fire. That seemed to speed up the process a good amount as the flickering beast  devoured its way through the pizza box, and the ones up above it slowly but surely. 

 

“You really like doing this huh?” “Fire is clean Dib, when an invader finishes their mission they’re given first go at initiating the organic sweep. Everything not fit for irken boot is burned with burny laser things.”  the corners of his mouth turn up, and even occluded by contact lenses there's something in his eyes that looks so far away. 

 

Dib takes a deep breath and closes out the rest of the world behind his eyelids, the burn of the menthols stays deep in his throat and he takes solace in that well and good.

  
  
  
  
  


“ _ Nothing matters Dib.” _ he says it boredly, the little horse fly like hairs glittering against his face in the fading sunlight with gentle sort of light flickering against them like greasy hair might, like dibs hair might. His wig never seems to really get filthy, maybe it’s something to do with the fact that he doesn’t really sweat. “The sooner your inferior brain comes to grips with that wet moist disgusting fact and let it squat like an earth octopus the better.” “Did....octopus? Zim the more you stay on earth the less you seem to make sense anymore.  _ Besides _ I know that, ok? I know. I just...I just wish that dad would even listen to me is all.”

 

“Dib the likelihood of your father ever listening to you is the same as the armada ever coming here, which is zero. Why waste your time like a pathetic smeet-worm squirming around looking for nutrients that aren’t there? Move on Dib, no irken would ever be this needy.” he pauses, shifting over onto his back staring up directly into the roof of his living room, the red purple of the couch  makes him almost look like roman royalty in his uniform, Dib notes to himself quietly. Zim wasn’t wrong, among the many things Zim was and could be wrong about his father wasn’t one of them and that hurt. It hurt in a way Dib didn’t think was possible. But it wasn’t, of course, anything that maybe a few beers couldn’t handle later when he needed to forget about the whole evening and get on with the night in peaceful sleep. It’s a long while before he talks again, and when he does its quick and to the point.

 

“Your couch is ugly Zim.” the look he gives back to the membrane is better than he could have ever possibly hoped for, until minimoose gets pelted at his head. Though even still he could find himself smiling at least a little through the assault.  

  
  
  


“Nothing matters.” he repeats it to himself, a mantra for daily repetition that he carries with him like a warm covering over his body and dulled tired mind. Hands shoved deep into his pockets and hidden away as he walks back home. Zim wasn’t wrong saying it and he feels so stupid being this shmoopy but what point was there in anything? Endless and continuing on forever, at least if he stopped caring he could stop getting caught up in the cycle and feeling more stupid doing that then just giving up plain and simple. 

 

When he got down to it nothing really did matter and it was better to just stop before he got anymore hurt. Before anything got anymore worse than it already was and had beene, he keeps up on that well and close by to his heart like a guarded secret that nobody could fully stare into. It was Dib’s and only Dib’s to hold on to even when his schoolmates pointed out how drastically he’s changed over the years. 

 

He couldn’t help but feel sorry for Zim though, at least just a little even if he absolutely hated him (and boy he did) it didn’t really seem appropriate that the thing he fought against which had twice as much spit vinegar and vitriol in it as he had ever had should be this   _ exhausted  _ with existing. It didn’t seem fair a single bit. Life isn’t fair though, as many years as he’s been on earth  and even as many as Zim has been here  _ and _ on irk you learn that. You have to learn that, if you don’t then the kick to the teeth that comes when you fall right to the ground comes in twice as hard. 

 

 

  
  
  
  


When he’s finally inside his home again he looks around examining the environment seeing only gaz who turned for a brief second looking over to him then back to the tv just as quickly as she looked back to him. “Spending time with your boyfriend again Dib?” “Hey! Jeeze, he’s not my boyfriend gaz he’s not even my friend and..I don’t think..does Zim even count as a boy?” she shrugs head resting in her hand which, in turn, the arm it belonged to had its elbow firmly planted in the arm of their own couch. “ _ Anyways _ it’s not like that Gaz. it’s just nice to hang out with someone who knows i’m not crazy. Even if it’s the same jerk who let everyone think I was.” 

 

Her eyes Drift away from the screen and all its flashing images and there’s something there quick and fleeting that almost looked like  worry, she stays for that moment then gets up exhaling softly, tv turning off with her swift hand during the process. “You really should stop smoking with Zim. You stink real bad Dib. Remember to bathe sometime this century..ok?” she examines him again, making way to her room shortly thereafter. 

 

Sometimes it gets so quiet at home that Dib would swear he was a ghost himself, and boy wouldn’t that be a tasty treat if that were true? Maybe he could expose himself instead and prove the supernatural to the world that way he muses to himself as he lays down in his bed. He could change his clothes later, no rush to do anything at all anymore right? Right. Orange light pours in from half closed shutters on his windows over his bed casting down last rays of the days warmth nicely to Dib as he fell deep in blissful sleep.

  
The burn settled in his throat like an old friend, he still tastes Zim and his shitty mint soaked cigarette on his tongue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took...forever


End file.
